Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2008 ii Paper 4 8C Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Consider , extending it at zero by . It is holomorphic in the upper half-plane and on its boundary, and on large upper semicircles because . For real , indent the upper-half-plane contour above the pole of . The clockwise indentation contributes , while the large semicircle contributes zero in the limit. The Cauchy integral theorem givesWith the stated Hilbert transform convention this is . ButTaking real parts yields the Hilbert transform of the sinc function:At the right side has limit zero; the same value follows by oddness of the principal-value integrand. The apparent singularity of at zero is removable, so the contour calculation is valid there too.